By Dhananjay W Bansod
The author is Assistant Professor, Population Research Centre, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.
dbansod@gmail.com

The declining child sex ratio throws up complex challenges for a nation that is struggling to fill its resource gap. The provisional findings of the Census 2011 reiterate the hopelessness that the nations’ girl children are staring at. The essay is an attempt to highlight some issues and relationships related to India’s declining child sex ratio scenario.

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A gradual improvement in the overall sex ratios (computed as females per 1,000 males) in 2011 made it almost equal to what was observed in 1961. Opposed to this, the data records a further decline in child sex ratio (CSR) for children 0-6 years at 914 – a drop of 13 points from the previous decade. This steady decline in India’s population aged 0-6 years has been observed ever since 1961. In 1991 it was 945, 2001-927 and in 2011...